Shortest Day/Longest Day

by one of the Culture Classes
(Anne Francis - teacher)

The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. In the west the winter solstice falls on December 21.  In Asia, because of the international date line, it is on December 22.

"In Japan the shortest day of the year is on December 22," reports Say Yoshida.  "It is called "Tou-ji", with "Tou" rhyming with toe. "Tou-ji" is translated "the winter solstice" into English."

"In Thailand there is no special celebration." Nuttapat Somboonhansa says. "The Thai people do not recognize this event. Thailand, it seem to me, has just 2 seasons HOT and TOO HOT.  :-)"

"In Brazil, the winter solstice is in June and the summer solstice is in December," says Eloisa Batista. "In December, our summer, it's very hot in Brazil, and we have the longest day."

Chi-Fan Yung has more to say.
In Hong Kong the winter solstice is called Done Je.Done: the "Done" being pronounced as in "bone", "zone", "cone" ... Je... err... it's really hard to explain its pronunciation in English.

"Done" means winter."Je" has many meanings. It can mean "come". Or it can mean "extreme". China, is most far away from the sun on that day of a year, so maybe it means extreme.

The first thing that comes to mind regarding "Done Je" is that every family gathers for dinner on that day.  In fact, we say "Done Je is bigger than New Year" meaning it's more important than the Chinese New Year.

"Done Je" is a big event, especially in the minds of older generations. Older members all want the whole family to gather on "Done Je". But sometimes when I talk with some friends, we are just wondering if we will demand our own kids come back home for dinner on "Done Je". This generation is adhering less and less to traditional stuff. Hong Kong is changing so fast that many traditional ways of life (villages....farming... fishing) are disappearing at a tremendous rate.  On the other hand, it's hard to imagine a traditional custom/ritual disappearing suddenly. After all, historical continuity has made many of our customs/rituals pass along for thousands of years.

From Margaret's beginner grammar/writing class

I will talk something about the name. I hope this helps.

According to Chinese tradition, almost everyone has three (or four) words as his or her name. The first word is the family name (it is quiet different with western culture!), like Kao, Chen, Lee, Lin, etc. There are also some who use two words as their family name, but it is uncommon.

The second word (The first word of first name) was given by family too in the past. It was the same between brothers and male cousins, sisters and female cousins. This word could distinguish from which generation you are in your clan. For example: My grandfather and his brothers use the same word "shan" as their name, and my father and my uncle use "ho" as their name, my brother and my male cousins use "yi" as their name. So if I see someone's last name is Kao, and his fist word of first name is "ho", then he may have the possibilty to be my uncle.

The third word is unique to oneself and given by one's parents. Nowadays the function of the second word is fading away. People no longer use family given word as their first name, instead they prefer to choose other word to represent their personality.

As a result, we have seen some persons use one word as first name, and even their first name have two words but it does't involve clan feelings. It become difficult to use one's name only to distinguish the relationships among relatives. 

If you have futher questions please let me know. Bye Bye! Have a good day!

Hui-Ling                 

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